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84 5 To Soissons The crisis for the British and French armies on the western front began March 21 with the opening offensive of the enormous German attack, and the latter ran on through four more attacks—lunges—until the fifth that began July 15 and ended in failure the next day. The fourth offensive toward Soissons had taken this sizable French city and had much confused the French railway system for east-west traffic that centered on the city. The purpose of the fifth offensive was to enlarge and perhaps find an opening in the salient of which Soissons was a part, and if the opening had appeared (it did not) to attack from the salient and move in the direction of Paris. All the while the AEF was still very much in organization, which for General Pershing meant more training. He would retrain the troops, emphasizing his favorite tactical weapon, the rifle. With a rifle, according to the general, a soldier could do almost anything. Yes, the soldier needed reinforcement with artillery against enemy machine guns. Pershing regarded artillery strictly as a supplement to the rifle of an individual soldier. He regarded machine guns as a nuisance. The use of gas, which the German army employed in enormous quantities in 1918, as much in that single year as in the years since first use at Ypres in 1915, did not nearly so concern him as the proper use of the rifle, in the hands of good American soldiers—which to his mind all of them were. So he proposed to prepare the troops, through such individuals as Brigadier General Fiske, his G-5. The divisions came over, however, the cantonment divisions, and moved constantly from place to place, which was like moving a circus, each division constituting a dozen circuses. They did not get much if any training. The only troops trained to Pershing’s satisfaction were those present in early 1918, having spent the winter with the exception of the Twenty-sixth (which General Edwards did not train). To Soissons 85 Liggett did his best with the training program imposed by GHQ, but the general and his Boston-lawyer-turned-major and Colonels Craig and Heintzelman could do little with Pershing’s impossible training program, and anyway such generals as Edwards were not inclined to take advice with no authority behind it. Sunday, June 16 Neufchâteau. Brigadier General Lejeune, of Marines, called with Major Ellis and Lieutenant Nelson. Lejeune said that the Marine Division was progressing and in certain respects was an accomplished fact. McAndrew (chief of staff) agreed to have him meet Pershing on the subject in two or three days. Major General James McAndrew was Pershing’s chief of staff at GHQ. Brigadier General John A. Lejeune would become commander of the Second Division during the Meuse-Argonne—the Marine brigade in that division made him eligible for that command. True to the Marines, Lejeune was seeking enlargement of the Marine contingent in the AEF into a division. It was an interesting idea, although at that moment the Marines were engaged in expelling the Germans from Belleau Wood, which they accomplished after a month of huge casualties, virtually half of their two regiments in the Marine Brigade. Interestingly, too, the brigade at Belleau was under Brigadier General Harbord, who was no tactician, whatever Pershing’s opinion of his high worth to the AEF. Whether Lejeune would have subscribed to different tactics than frontal attacks—Harbord hardly used the division’s artillery brigade against Belleau Wood, which was infested with enemy machine-gun nests—is difficult to say. Tuesday, June 18 Went to La Ferte-sous-Jouarre with the general, via Chaumont, For­‑ ges, Nogent, Provens, Coulommiers, and settled in new quarters under instructions from GHQ. 86 In the Company of Generals Called on General Pershing and General McAndrew at Chaumont, both in conference with General Kernan, and we did not see them, but General Liggett left card with word that he was going through to new station. Wednesday, June 19 Singleton very anxious to have General Liggett see Bundy and Brown and arrange for relief of Second Division, as Brown tells him the outfit is all in. I referred to the relief of Marine regiment by the 7th Regiment Infantry, of Third Division, and also to the fact that the general knows all about the need of rest for the Second and has spoken of it, but that is all he can do. Singleton...

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